Still Life with Bathtoy
by Marguerite1
Summary: For Emily Meredith's bubbleficathon contest. Sort of a post-ep for "Memorial Day," CJToby.


Title: Still Life With Bathtoy  
For McSister, via Emily Meredith's "Bubbleficathon."

STILL LIFE WITH BATHTOY

June 2004

Toby called out his ex-wife's name without thinking.

"Not even close." C.J.'s voice, without surprise or embarrassment, rang out from  
his bathroom.

He'd noticed the flickering candlelight in the window as he'd driven home from  
the synagogue, and for a whole minute he forgot that Andi was still in Germany  
while the twins were still with her parents. Stupid mistake, an exhausted man's  
mistake.

"You decent?" he shouted as he stuffed his keys into the pocket of his suit coat  
and slung it haphazardly on the back of a chair.

"Come in and find out."

It was an invitation to something, but Toby was not willing to wager what it  
might be. Sidling to the door of the master bath, he poked his head inside just  
in time to hear the sloshing of water over flesh. "Whoa," he muttered, backing  
away.

"Oh, come on in," C.J. said. "It's not like I have something you haven't seen  
before."

She had a point, albeit a shaky one. "Yeah, but it's not anything I've seen  
since the last millennium."

Droplets of water landed on the back of his head. "I'm covered head to toe with  
bubbles. Well, collarbones to toes. So pick your mind up out of the gutter and  
get in here."

"You're pretty bossy," he said as he leaned against the sink. "Especially for  
someone who commandeered someone else's home without his permission."

"It's hard to 'commandeer' something when the homeowner has given you a key."

Toby cut a glance at C.J. and hoped he was focusing on her head rather than the  
bubbles clinging alluringly to her curves. "You scared the crap out of me, just  
now. I ought to have you arrested."

"For what?" she asked, turning on the faucet again.

"Bathing and entering." He knew he was smirking at his own joke, almost ruining  
it. C.J. favored him with a throaty laugh.

"I had to enter before I bathed. But you're a funny guy, Toby, you should do  
stand-up. Especially since you're just standing here."

"I'm leaning," he said, hoping to sound dignified.

C.J. snorted. "Just sit, would you?" When Toby headed for the toilet, C.J.  
patted the rim of the tub, leaving a little halo of soap bubbles in her wake.  
"Right here."

"You're not going to, you know, with the water?" Toby asked, indicating the  
dampness at the back of his collar.

She shook her head. Her hair, which was in a messy bun on top of her head, was  
curling a little bit at the ends. A peachy glow, rather becoming, spread across  
her cheeks and shoulders. "I'll be good, if you tell me why you didn't come home  
after work for over two hours."

"I went out," Toby replied gruffly. For whatever reasons he didn't want to  
consider, ever, he had never been comfortable coming out and saying that he'd  
gone to worship. He looked down at his clasped hands, at the place on his finger  
that was still a little lighter than the rest of his skin. "I went to temple,"  
he said, and this time his voice was soft.

For a moment it was so quiet that Toby could hear the soft popping of little  
bubbles. "To do the thing," C.J. whispered.

Mi shebeirach. The thing. "I...yeah." Toby scratched above his left eyebrow.  
Saying Donna's name aloud had been excruciating. "Josh said he was going  
tomorrow morning. One of the nurses is giving him a ride."

"I'm surprised he could tear himself away from the hospital."

"I am too, a little. But who am I to question one of Josh's rare moments of  
faith?"

"Or desperation."

"Or that." He dabbled his fingers in the water, frowning when he nudged  
something neither water nor flesh. "What the hell?"

C.J. smiled, moving one knee and letting a yellow rubber duck float to the  
surface. "Who knew you kept bathtoys?" she smirked.

"Give me...that's Molly's duck. Andi was going nuts wondering what had happened to  
it."

"I found it among all the shampoo stuff." C.J. pointed to a rack hanging from  
the shower nozzle. "For someone without a lot of hair, Tobus..."

"Shut up." He squeezed the duck in the middle, and it let out a metallic squawk.  
"She gets this in her hands and she won't stop. Ten, fifteen minutes at a time.  
Quack, quack, quack."

She looked up at him, her pale eyes shining brightly. "Two years ago you'd have  
taken that duck and hurled it into the nearest trash compactor just to hear its  
death wheeze." Her fingers grazed his wrist. "Fatherhood's really softened you  
up."

"Don't." He held his hand away from her in a warning gesture. Andi had all but  
called him a lousy father, and the words still stung. He was a sad man, and now  
he was a bad father. Maybe a bad friend, for all he knew, because Josh sounded  
worse at the end of their conversation than he had at the beginning. He untied  
his shoes and slipped them and his socks off while he waited for the anxiety to  
abate. "I see you have a drink, there," he said quickly.

"Gin and tonic. Only I didn't use enough gin, so it's more like juniper soda."  
She was talking too fast, the way she always did when she knew he was  
misdirecting the conversation. "Hey, did you know that 724's going to get hung  
up in committee?"

Groaning, Toby ran his palm over his forehead. "Could we, for the love of God,  
not talk shop? At least not any shop where I work?"

"Sounds good to me." C.J. slipped deeper into the tub. "Although I do have some  
'light reading' to do tonight, unless you have some secret code that will  
eliminate nine-tenths of the excess verbiage. Ever thought about writing Cliff's  
Notes for Congress? Filibusters for Dummies?"

He snorted. "That's the best post-administration job idea I've heard so far."

C.J. finished her drink and held the glass out to Toby. "Yeah, I'm sure," she  
said in response to the face he knew he was making. "Don't skimp on the gin."

Gin, tonic, ice cubes, a lime wedge. Easy enough. He tried not to think of C.J.  
lying naked three doors away. That road had closed for them over a decade ago.  
Or had it? Toby wasn't sure he'd ever really know the answer to that. By the  
time he cleared away the drink components, C.J. was calling him back into the  
bathroom.

"By the way, where are your legs?" he asked without preamble, wondering how the  
hell she got all six feet of her into his bathtub.

"That's between me and David Copperfield," she replied. "Give me my drink."

Toby handed it over with a bow. "Will there be anything else, Madame?"

"Quit staring at the bubbles and wondering how long they'll last. I put in more  
while you were making the drink."

He hadn't been conscious of it, but now that she mentioned it he couldn't think  
of anything else. Damn. He sat on the edge of the tub and looked away. The glass  
clinked against the porcelain and C.J. let out a heavy sigh. "What?" Toby asked.  
Out of the corner of his eye he could see C.J.'s right leg, soap bubbles  
slinking along the slim length of her calf.

"I was just thinking. About the scars."

"What scars? Oh." Of course. Donna's scars.

"Toby - are they bad?"

He thought about the scars that now traversed her fair skin - Josh had described  
in morbid detail every inch that he'd seen, and he'd seen pretty much all there  
was. "Well, I heard about it all from Josh this afternoon. And of course he was  
incredibly upset. Just like I'd have been if it'd been Andi." He reached behind  
and let C.J. take his hand in her soap-slickened one. "Or you. There, but for  
the grace of God."

Truth be told, he'd awakened just that morning from a nightmare where Andi had  
been blown up. When he'd finally managed to get back to a fitful sleep, he was  
visited with another hellish dream where C.J. had been seriously injured. All  
day he had wondered which version of events terrified him more.

Then he thought about Percy Fitzwallace and he couldn't suppress the tremor in  
his hands. C.J. squeezed tighter, and for a second he heard her breath catch in  
a tiny sob.

"Don't you dare," he warned her, his own voice unsteady.

"I sent her," C.J. whispered.

"No, you did not." The tone was so stern that it surprised even him. "You did  
not send her with the CODEL group."

Her voice rose in pitch and the words jumbled together. "I might as well have. I  
gave her a lecture about being too dependent on Josh, about not exploring her  
opportunities. I all but packed her bags, Toby, and look what happened! If she'd  
been killed--"

"She wasn't," Toby said softly. The need to take her in his arms was palpable.  
He held it at bay, savoring the pain that kept his mind focused on her instead  
of his own gnawing demons. "She's going to come home and she's going to be fine.  
You're going to be a big part of her recovery."

C.J. blinked at him. "I am?" she asked tremulously.

"Absolutely." He moved his palm to her cheek, cupping it gently. "For starters,  
she's going to need help taking baths - and, apart from the  
disaster-waiting-to-happen elements, letting Josh do it would probably land him  
in the hospital with a matching cast."

That made her laugh. She picked up the duck and squeezed it. "Can I borrow the  
duck?"

"You bet." Toby got off the bathtub's rim and walked over to the door, unhooking  
a blue and white striped bathrobe. "Speaking of help taking baths, you need to  
get out before you become the world's tallest prune."

"I need a towel," C.J. said, grabbing one from the bar just above her head. She  
got up with surprising grace, her back turned so that all Toby could see was the  
graceful line from shoulder to hip. Keeping his gaze off to the other side, Toby  
handed her the bathrobe and waited until she patted him on the shoulder.

"Where are your clothes?" he asked. The flush that rose to her cheeks told him  
even before she had a chance to speak.

"On your bed," she whispered, her voice low.

Oh, God, this was such a bad idea. "C.J.," he began, shifting from his right  
foot to his left and back again.

"I know." Despite the control in her tone, her eyes betrayed her embarrassment.  
"I just thought...it'd be nice. To have someone right next to me."

"Yeah." He took her hand between both of his and brought it to his lips, never  
breaking their shared gaze. "Where's your car?"

"I took a cab - to the sushi place down the street. No one followed me."

So damn complicated. Everything about their lives was just so damn complicated.

"It's been, what, twelve years?"

"Except for the night I found out about the M.S. But we were both drunk off our  
asses so that probably doesn't count." She backed away. "If you think this is a  
bad idea, then I can just--"

"No," he said, surprised at how thick his voice sounded. "I just…if this is just  
something we do when we're scared half to death..."

C.J. shook her head, her hair tumbling from its bun and framing her face. "It's  
really not." She bent her knees a little so she could kiss him on the cheek,  
then she walked toward the bedroom.

He was probably going to regret this in the morning. Hopefully, he'd be too busy  
for the next hour to start pre-regret. But he followed behind anyway, laughing  
when she turned to him and said, "Bring the duck."

It was small and relentlessly cheerful, and if it made C.J. smile, then it was  
the most precious thing he could possibly give her.

END

Author's note: I really hadn't expected to write any more West Wing - but it was  
a bubbleficathon, for goodness' sake, and I owe Emily Meredith SO much for a  
wonderful weekend's hospitality. Toby, a bathtub, and a rubber duck were  
literally the least I could do.

Many thanks to Ryo Sen and Jo March for overcoming their own WW fear and doing  
beta service.

Feedback is welcome at

Return to challenge fic.


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